Drugs

Under President Obama's tenure deaths from drug overdoses in America reached anall timehigh in2016. This included both opiods and illegal drugs.Mostof the illegal drugs came into the United States across the vast 2,000-mile land border between the US and Mexico, called theSouthwestern borderor SWB. What actions have President Trump taken to fix this problem?

*UPDATE: U.S. drug approvals hit a 21-year high in 2017 (nearly double of 2016) and an astounding 1,617 generic drugs in Trump's first 20 months saving Americans $26 billion on prescription drugs . The cost of prescription drugs are falling for the first time in 47 years. And the southern border wall (best weapon to stop illegal drugs coming in) broke ground.

​1/25/17: President Trump keeps his word on arguably his biggest campaign mantra. He signed an executive order to begin building the Mexico border wall ‘within months’. The wall is a much needed weapon to help stem the flow of drugs from pouring into America.

​3/29/17: President Trump announces executive order to combat opioid epidemic in U.S. The executive order sets to establish a federal commission to combat America’s opioid epidemic.

8/2/17: Trump's AG pick (Attorney General Jeff Sessions) announced the formation of the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit, a new Department of Justice pilot program to utilize data to help combat the devastating opioid crisis that is ravaging families and communities across America.

​8/29/17: Four companies have been chosen to build prototypes for Donald Trump's planned border wall, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said. The wall is said to be one of the biggest weapons to fight the war on drugs.

​9/1/17: President Trump tapped U.S. Rep. Tom Marino to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The Pennsylvania Republican was one of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s earliest backers on Capitol Hill.

​9/28/17: President Trump's ongoing Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis scores a big win by setting new limits on patient supply.

10/06/17: After President Trump called on the FDA for faster approval of prescription drugs they did just that. The U.S Food and Drug Administration approved new drugs -- treating everything from cancer to rare genetic diseases -- on pace to nearly double last year’s approvals.

10/26/17: President Donald Trump declared a nationwide public health emergency to combat the opioid crisis.

​11/30/17: Trump donated his third-quarter salary to the Department of Health and Human Services to help fight the opioid epidemic.

​12/1/17: President Trump donated his third-quarter presidential salary to help the Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts to combat the opioid crisis.

1/4/18: Trump's Justice Dept, led by Jeff Sessions, ​announced it was rolling back Obama era guidelines that kept federal government from interfering with state-legalized marijuana. Crtics say the decision trampled on the rights of voters in states where the drug is now legal and created uncertainty about how strictly federal drugs laws will be enforced.

​1/12/18: President Trump signed the Interdict Act to fund fentanyl detectors at border crossings. Trump bill provides $9 million for the opioid sensors to combat drug smuggliing.

1/29/18: The Trump administration announced a new resource to help federal law enforcement disrupt online illicit opioid sales, the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team. The move assigns dozens of federal agents and analysts will form a team to disrupt illicit opioid sales online, an emerging front in the government’s campaign to thwart a deadly epidemic.

3/19/18: Trump unveils three-pronged plan to fight opioid epidemic. He outlined a wide-ranging plan to combat the opioid epidemic on including an ad campaign to discourage drug use, expand addiction treatment and pursue a get-tough approach to law enforcement such as the death penalty for drug dealers. "Whether you are a dealer or doctor or trafficker or a manufacturer, if you break the law and illegally peddle these deadly poisons, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will hold you accountable," Trump stated. "Failure is not an option," he added. "Addiction is not our future."

5/11/18: President Trump unveiled his plan for lowering prescription drug prices, vowing to “take on” the powerful pharmaceutical industry while calling for an end to “global freeloading” that has allowed foreign countries to pay less for American medicine. He characterized the proposal as "the most sweeping action in history to lower the price of prescription drugs for the American people."

5/30/18: Donald Trump signed into law a bill named, Right to Try Act of 2017, that would allow those with gravely ill patients to try experimental treatments and bypass the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

6/28/18: The DOJ announced charges against 601 people including doctors for taking part in healthcare frauds that resulted in over $2 billion in losses and contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic in some cases.

7/17/18: Trump's FDA announced it will make more drugs easily available to patients, cutting the roll that doctors play.

8/16/18: The FDA approves Teva’s generic EpiPen after years long delay.

10/10/18: President Donald Trump signed two bills aimed at lowering pharmaceutical drug prices by promoting greater disclosure in drug pricing. The two bills the president signed — the Know the Lowest Price Act and the Patients' Right to Know Drug Prices Act — are meant to prevent "gag clauses" in agreements between pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen who administer prescription drug programs for insurance companies, which pharmacists say kept them from disclosing cheaper drug options to consumers.

10/25/18: Trump signs new opioid bills, introduces rule to lower drug prices. Support for Patients and Communities Act, was approved by Congress in early October with wide bipartisan support.

11/30/18: The FDA has over 20 months of the Trump Administration approved an astounding 1,617 generic drugs, which are identical to branded versions but sold at commodity prices after patents expire. That works out to 81 a month on average—an 17% increase over the preceding 20 months. The Council of Economic Advisers estimated $26 billion in savings on drug prescriptions for Americans.

12/23/18: By Trump signing the sweeping farm bill it also included "The Hemp Farming Act of 2018" a bipartisan legislation delisting hemp as a controlled substance and allowing for the continued growth of North Carolina’s hemp farming industry. "The biggest takeaway is that hemp is now classified as an agricultural commodity," said Blake Butler, Executive Director of the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association.

3/20/19: The cost of prescription drugs are falling for the first time in 47 years.